Continuing with my readings, I began Randy Olson’s Houston We Have a Narrative. Olson started his career as a marine biologist and later, after achieving tenure as a professor, went to film school and worked in Hollywood. The main purpose of this book is to make the case for why narrative is important to scientific communication. The main point Olson emphasizes is the importance of the “And But Therefore” (ABT) model for communication science. Similar to the concept of structuring a narrative with a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, the ABT model is a simple way to make scientific findings compelling. Another important point he makes in the beginning of the book is knowing where to draw the line with adding narrative. Too little narrative makes the data boring and unlikely to gain public interest, while too much makes the data convoluted and may be prone to deceiving people.
After making his case as to why narrative is important to scientists, Olson has begun to dig into the exact tools he recommends. He begins with the importance of templates. The first template is the “word template,” where he recommends you summarize the central theme of your work with a single word. The template he provides for this section is a quote from Theodosius Dobzhansky about studying biology. The quote is “Nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution.” Olson proposes that if you remove the words “biology” and “evolution” that you will be left with the central theme of your work. The second template is the ABT template I previously mentioned. This template is where you make sure you don’t bore your audience, and that your work has a streamlined narrative structure. The third template is the paragraph template which sets up in a sense a whole storyline to follow. He puts the least amount of emphasis on the third template. I imagine these templates will be immensely helpful when I start planning and creating my own visualizations.
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